


The Ghost with the Emerald Eyes

by DixieDale



Category: Garrison's Gorillas
Genre: Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 07:42:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17219768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieDale/pseuds/DixieDale
Summary: Actor had thought never to see her again, yet here she was, standing in front of him.  Her name was Emerajde.  She hadn't changed - she was still lovely, she still wore orchids in her hair, she was still bent on revenge.  Oh, and she was still a ghost.





	The Ghost with the Emerald Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> A friend offered up a challenge, wanting a new story featuring Actor. My muse obviously misunderstood, because she delivered three! Here is one of them.

He'd met her in Rio de Janeiro, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Well, that was fitting, for she was easily the most beautiful woman he'd ever met. She was lovely and mysterious, a tall dusky-skinned beauty with emerald green eyes and black hair cascading to her knees and below. Witch, they called her, most of them who had some knowledge of her. Some called her Queen, some Priestess. Some few sought to call her whore or slave, though those who did tended to die in one unpleasant fashion or another. HE called her sestrilla, 'beloved one', at which she shook her head, but fondly, telling him he was being sweet but untruthful. He called her hafelina, 'little cat', which made her laugh as she was only an inch shorter than him, quite tall for a woman. Eventually, he called her friend, and perhaps that was the truest of all the names he gave her.

How he'd dared approach her, he never quite knew. It was a daring move, even for one as bold as he'd been in those days. Well, there was something to be said about knowing he had nothing beyond each day as it came, that let him be more daring, of course. Still, that she'd met his eyes in the teeming crowd, smiled, and held out her hand to draw him closer, that was a miracle.

She'd been fond of him, he was sure of that. They'd been friends of a sort. After all, who but a friend would have demanded such a favor from him? Who but a friend would have granted such a favor, undertaken such a long and dangerous journey to fulfil a friend's last wishes?

She'd pressed it into his hand, that small medallion she'd worn at her neck, and it was so hot it burned him, causing him to gasp. Later, when he'd opened his hand to look to see what she had given him, there was nothing there, nothing but the faint purpling impression of an oddly shaped object, and even that fading by nightfall. He looked once again at the crumpled body at his knees, knowing he should weep, but somehow unable to do so. Perhaps the tears would come later. For now, he had promises to keep.

 

Brandonshire, February 1944:  
Two weeks had passed since he'd first caught a glimpse of her, a glimpse that had rocked him to the depths of his soul. That had been in London, and he'd half convinced himself it was just someone who looked amazingly like her. No, he didn't really believe that. After all, it was winter, cold and bleak with ice on the pavement, and she'd been dressed in her favorite green print folded cotton wrap, tied over one shoulder, her feet bare. 

Now it seemed she was there whenever he turned his head, sometimes close enough he could smell the wild orchids she always wore in her hair. Lithe and vibrant as she'd appeared all those years ago, her eyes showing the same range of emotions he'd seen then. Gentle amusement, intelligent curiosity, heated passion. And fierce hatred, coupled with an equally fierce demand. "Kill them! You swore it to me! If you laid eyes on them again, you would kill them!" 

He'd dropped the ball during the showdown with Dace Meadows and his crew when she'd appeared unexpectedly, her face, her words taking all of his attention, distracting him from the fight he was engaged in. Later, answering to the loud admonitions from his team mates, Casino not tending to be all that forgiving, considering that painful knife graze along his ribs, he'd started to just push them away with some nonsense or the other, then he stopped. Stopped and paused, and with haunted eyes asked them a question they'd not been expecting.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he'd asked, getting a wide variety of stares from the other men in the room. Casino was giving his usual 'yeah, pull the other one!' look of sheer disbelief. Goniff was staring, wide-eyed, a touch of fear mixed with perhaps too MUCH belief. Chief had been the real surprise.

"That who she is? The dark woman with the green eyes? A ghost?" and now it was the Indian garnering all the stares. 

"You saw her?" Actor breathed, squinting over at the young man, wondering if somehow he'd talked in his sleep about her, or if it was really possible Chief HAD seen her.

Hesitantly, he asked again, "you believe in ghosts?", to get a quick snort in return.

"Like asking "you believe water is wet?" What is, is; don't know belief has much to do with it."

And with that bit of encouragement, he told them the story, of the men who'd broken into her sanctuary in search of the treasure she'd been rumored to have. They'd found little in the way of treasure, other than a few pieces of jewelry and some odd statuettes carved from some unknown stone. But they had found her, and in their trying to force her to tell them where she'd hidden the more valuable pieces, she had been fatally injured. 

"They had fled when they heard me at the entrance, leaving her there on the wooden floor. She died in my arms, asking only two things of me. The first, that I return her ashes to mix with the waters of the great river of that country, the Amazon. She'd shared with me once that her home village was only a day's journey from the river. The last thing she asked, was that I take vengence on the men who had harmed her. I hadn't seen them, didn't know who they were or how to learn that piece of information, but still, I swore. I could do no less. She took the medallion from her throat, handed it to me. God, it burned, like molten lead in the palm of my hand! Then she was gone, having taken her last breath, and the medallion was back at her throat, though I could still feel its imprint on my palm."

"I hired a small boat, traveled from Rio to Vitoria to Olinda, to Sao Luis. Finally, at Belem, I went ashore, to make the journey overland from there. I stood at the river a long time before I opened the pouch and dropped her ashes into the swiftly moving water. I wished her rest, and truthfully hoped she would find it there."

He'd gone silent, and the others let the silence lay without disturbance for a goodly while.

"And the second part," came from Chief, perhaps not so surprisingly.

Actor raised his head, his eyes showing his gradual return from his stance on the banks of that vast river.

"I returned to Rio de Janeiro, and one day, in the streets, my palm started burning, most fiercely. It seemed to lead me on, and when I came to face with a finely-dressed man with cold eyes, I knew; and I kept my promise, there in the silence of a stone courtyard. Again, in one of the bodega's where I had gone searching for a particular bottle of wine, the sign came, and then another during Carnivale. For a long time, there was nothing else, and I thought perhaps there had only been the three of them."

He blinked, looked at each of them in turn, searching for what, he wasn't sure - Belief? Disbelief? Shock, perhaps rejection for what he had just admitted? He saw only a patient waiting for him to continue his story.

"She started appearing just recently. She tells me there were two others, and that they are here, in England," hesitating, not sure how to explain the sheer force of the two pulls on him - his promise, made so long ago, and his loyalty to the men he now thought of as family. He'd been fighting with this ever since she'd first delivered her message. No, he had no qualms about keeping his promise, except for the danger it would put the others in. While he was confident in his ability to get the job done, (after all he'd hardly lessened in his rather lethal abilities over the years), doing so without bringing down the wrath of the authorities on Garrison and the others, that was more problematic.

Chief just nodded, accepting. "So, how do we find them?"

Actor looked at him, stunned, then looked at Casino and Goniff, wondering how they were taking that matter-of-fact question.

Casino frowned in annoyance, and snorted, "what? We're just supposed to stand around while you get lost in the clouds and get yourself killed, Beautiful? Maybe get one of us killed along with you?" 

Goniff had wrinkled up his nose, "sides, I'd sleep easier if we just get the job done and let 'er be on 'er way back to 'er river, or wherever she wants to be, stead of being 'ere. Makes for a chill bed, you know, 'aving a ghost 'anging around," and there was something in his quietly sad but matter-of-fact voice that kept them from inquiring further. 

Somehow, he hadn't expected that, their taking up of his burden to make it their own. He'd thought to caution them, reminding them of the dangers, but didn't. None of them were stupid; they knew quite well this was risky in more ways than one. 

"Better not tell the Warden, though; doubt 'e'll understand. Gets skittish, 'e does, bout some things. Put it down to 'is training, I do. Unfortunate, acourse, but w'at can you do," from Goniff had them looking at each other, a grin starting to appear on each of their faces, then a joined laugh sealed the bond. Yes, they'd get the job done; yes, they'd free Emerajde, if possible; and they'd do both without involving their determined, competent, but oddly unworldly Lieutenant in any of it.

It turned out it hadn't been that difficult. Emerajde had guided them unerringly to the warehouse district off the docks, then to a small office where antiquities and curiosities from South America co-mingled hither and yon with those from Egypt and China and other far-flung places. He'd taken the lead, the burning in his palm telling him without doubt these two had taken a part in that death so many miles away. They had not been alone, those two, and the three others in their employ had been fierce in their attack on the interlopers, but it hadn't taken long. Actor had thought he would feel something, anything, as he looked down at the bodies and the blood staining the rough plank flooring, but he didn't. Nothing at all.

Goniff cleared his throat, getting Actor's attention. "Best we be going, mate. Not too many watchmen in this area, other that those 'ired special, but no sense being reckless, now is there?"

He stood there, calm smile on his face, his blue eyes shining in pure innocence, as if he was suggesting a quiet run to the pub, and the bewildered look that followed the joined snort of laughter from his three team mates would have fooled almost any who had been watching. That is, if you discounted the knife in his hand, the knife he was wiping off on the shirt of one of the fallen before tucking it into his shirt once again.

Actor wasn't sure what he was expecting, perhaps her appearing to him offering thanks? Her appearing to tell him there were yet others to be found? But there was nothing, not for some time. 

Then the day came when he entered the Common Room to the sight of flowers, interspersed with candles, heaped around the polished table to the side. He froze. He'd seen tables like that before, in Brazil, in other of the South American countries, and quickly realized it was November 2nd, Dia de Finados, Day of the Dead. 

Chief had come up behind him. "Didn't know if she would like it, but seemed like we should do something, ya know?" 

He turned, searching with incredulous eyes the dark ones gazing so calmly back at him. 

"How did you know?"

That got him a quick shrug, "did some reading. Lots of people remember the dead; this was as close as we could come to what we figured she might like." Chief frowned, "don't know what else is called for, though."

Actor realized Goniff and Casino were there too. He cleared his throat, a mist crossing his eyes. "Yes, I think she would . . . ".

His voice trailed away, as a figure formed in front of the makeshift altar. They watched as her hand reached out to touch the flowers {"and where, and at what expense, had they arranged for so many flowers in November, in England??"}. She leaned in to inhale the fragrance, from the flowers and the scented candles, and turned to them, that wonderful smile of hers warming each of them. 

A faint whisper sounded in the quiet room, "yes, I like it. Thank you. And you, old friend, I remove the burden from you; you have carried it well, and have honored what was between us. And, remember this. You called me sestrilla, 'beloved one'. I told you then, that was sweet but untruthful. Know this, she waits for you, the one you will call that in truth. Do not fail to recognize her, for she will bring you great joy, even greater than the joy you have given me." She faded away, as if she had never been, and Actor felt the faint burn in his palm for the last time.

"Blimey! I know you said she was beautiful, but never was expecting that!" 

"Actor? Do I have any chance of getting an explanation for that?" and each of them jumped, not realizing Garrison had been standing behind them.

"You are most likely better off not, Craig," Actor had to say.

With a long look at the altar, and the empty space that had held the stunningly beautiful woman, and then at each of his four wild-card cons, Craig Garrison had nodded, slowly, and admitted, "I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't right. How about a drink?"

And he opened the cabinet, pulled out the bottle and five glasses, and together they drank, none of them saying much. It was perhaps telling, though, when on the last round, the glasses were all raised in the direction of the table bearing those flowers and candles, as if in a toast, and the drink swallowed in unison. No one mentioned the strong scent of orchids that filled the room in reply; it really wasn't necessary.


End file.
